The Handbook of Discourse Analysis

Nine Ways of Looking at Apologies 213
(with some sniping from
traditionalists) in 1896 (Delbanco 1999).
The social sciences are even newer,
with anthropology and sociology
dating from the first third of the
twentieth century; departments of
linguistics became commonplace only
toward the end of the 1960s.
2 As an illustration, if the syntactician is
permitted to offer analyses that take no
cognizance of the fact that sentences
are produced in the service of
cognition and communication, then
surely such analyses can function only
as unintentional self-parodies, the
ivory tower at its most aloof and
irrelevant, social science turned
antisocial (and not too scientific, since
form divorced from function tends to
offer very few useful or lasting
generalizations).
3 Older readers may recall Steve
Martin’s line on Saturday Night Live,
“Well, excu-u-use me!,” to precisely
this effect.
4 The relation between “real” feelings
and “surface” ones proves as
intriguing as it is vexing for several
disciplines. It manifests itself in Ekman
and Friesen’s (1975) distinction
between “automatic” expressions of
emotion that represent universal
human instincts (e.g. scowling to
express anger) and those that people
learn as part of their culture’s
communicative repertoire (e.g.
Japanese giggling, vs. American joking,
to cover embarrassment); in the
various distinctions made within
several versions of transformational
generative grammar (“deep,”
“abstract,” “underlying,” or “logical”
vs. “surface” structure); and in
psychoanalytic discussion of the
“latent” vs. “manifest” content of
dreams, symptoms, and errors. Here is
another point at which disparate fields
come together in a common quest,
obscured by differences in vocabulary
and methodology.
5 This was a notorious and controversial
case shown on Court TV and tirelessly
reported in network news and
magazine shows nightly. Louise
Woodward, a young British national
employed in Cambridge MA as a
nanny, was accused of shaking the
baby in her charge to death. The
evidence was ambiguous. Found
guilty by the jury, she was placed on
probation by the judge and allowed
to go free, both decisions provoking
controversy among the public and
“experts” of various stripes.
6 However, the popularity in high places
of the adage “Never apologize, never
explain” argues that the two may be
closer than the above analysis suggests.
7 For the historical record: in January of
1998, evidence came to light that
President Clinton had engaged in
sexual conduct with a White House
intern, Monica Lewinsky. Shortly
thereafter on a television interview he
said, “I have never, at any time, had
sexual relations with that woman,
Miss Lewinsky.” The question
remained red-hot for several months,
with continual denials on one side
and insistences on the other. In
August Lewinsky’s “semen-stained
dress” came to light, and subsequent
DNA testing proved the semen to be
the President’s. Apologies were then
demanded – for exactly what (the
sexual behavior; the untruthfulness;
the fact that the statement had been
accompanied by wagging/shaking
his finger at us/you/the American
people) was never precisely clarified.